


Collection of Voltron Works

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron - Fandom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-08 03:38:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11638158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A collection of short, unrelated Voltron fics. Each chapter is a new story.





	1. Chapter 1

Lance wakes up early on Friday.

He doesn't try to do it, but everyone trained enough the day before that all he had to do, really, was collapse on his bed and let the darkness take him. It was the kind of sleep that accompanies hard work and extreme exhaustion.

Lance gets dressed. He might be the only one awake, if he's lucky. This means he might have time to practice with the dummies before real training begins later today. He's been working harder and more often, lately (all the paladins have). With Shiro gone, everyone feels the need to overcompensate for their lost team member. It's hit Keith hardest, turning him into an even angrier and closed-off version of himself. Sure, there's outbursts, and he smiled when Hunk told that joke the other day, but that is a rare occasion on its own.

The castle is quiet, only the soft hum of the generators echoing through the halls. Lance reaches the training room with no problems. There's sounds coming from inside, though, and he looks through the window in the door, curious as to who beat him this morning.

Inside, someone with black hair is slicing dummies through their torsos with a giant red sword. _Keith,_ Lance thinks. _Of course it's Keith._

He goes in anyways, pushing the heavy door open. The other paladin stops, wiping sweat off his face with his shirt, and turns towards Lance.

“Oh, it's you.” Lance opens his mouth, not sure of how to respond, when Keith starts walking towards him. Lance instinctively tries not to back up -- it's a pretty big sword, and Keith goes off easily now that the burden of being in charge has been forced upon him. “Hunk told me it was your birthday,” he says matter-of-fact.

 _Oh._ “Oh, yeah. Guess that is today, isn't it?” Lance tries to count how many days he's been away from Earth. It's too many.

“You forgot it was your birthday?”

“No,” Lance shoots, rolling his eyes. “But yeah, I did.” Keith raises an eyebrow. “It's just… there's no calendars up here in space. Coran and Allura use different time measurements that we do. Plus,” he adds, “it's easier to remember dates during school, which isn't the case here. No school.”

“It's July,” Keith says. “Do you usually have school in July?”

 _Damn._ “You got me there, Red,” Lance says, sighing in defeat. He's too tired for arguments this morning. His legs still hurt from yesterday.

“Don't call me that,” Keith grumbles. After a beat, he speaks again. “Wanna help me with these dummies?”

Lance looks at him in surprise. Keith is staring at a spot behind Lance, waiting for his answer.

“Uh, sure. I guess.”

Before turning on the training program, Keith turns back to Lance again. “Really though, happy birthday.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance gets into trouble.

It smells like smoke, and that is all Keith can really see, anyways. It is hazy and thick, and his helmet does not do much to help with the view.

He can hear his fellow paladins yelling as they fly their lions closer and closer to the edge that separates life from death. Usually, Keith is closest, because Lance is right: he does not know when to stop fighting. He is constantly doing whatever he needs (or wants) to do. But ever since Shiro was gone, he finds himself holding back a little. Keith is acutely aware of how _small_ Pidge is, and how easy it would be for Hunk to get smashed to bits. So Keith holds back, just a little, to make sure his team is covered.

Lotor does not hold back; it is something they all learned early on, when he tried to kidnap Lance (it worked). But he fought his way out, rescuing Pidge’s father along the way. Apparently, Matt Holt and Shiro were not with him. Allura used the castle to pick the two of them up. Lotor never even realized Lance managed to break out until a day later, and by that time, the team was already far away, jumping through wormhole after wormhole to distance themselves from the prince.

Keith sees his red lion fly past him, blasting a ship apart with one blow. The blue lion roars past, ripping a fighter jet apart with her teeth. Allura is doing much better in that lion than Keith expected. She must have been practicing with Blue while the others were resting.

Keith does not know when it happens; all he knows is that Hunk starts yelling into the helmet.

“Allura! Princess! Keith, we gotta help her! Someone!”

He turns the black lion to see that the blue counterpart is being dragged through space, towards the mother ship, where Lotor is located.

“Paladins, forward,” he yells. “We need to cut Allura loose!”

The blue lion is fighting back, but it suddenly powers down and stops moving. Then a wormhole appears, and the blue lion is catapulted forwards into it. Keith surges forward, trying to reach Blue. The wormhole closes, and Allura is gone.

“No!” Pidge is shouting curse words Keith did not even know existed, and he wishes once again you could turn the volume down on the helmets.

“We have to keep fighting, guys,” he snaps, grabbing a jet and throwing it with his mouth into a larger ship. They both glide through space.

“No!” Coran turns off the castle's defenses. “Fall back! That's a direct order!”

Hunk does not need to be told twice, zooming to the castle, and Pidge and Keith follow slowly. Lance frees the red lion from the grasp of a larger ship and crashes inside. The doors close and the castle flies.

“We need Allura,” Coran shouts. “We need a wormhole, stat!”

“How are we supposed to do that when she was chucked into a wormhole _herself_?” Pidge says angrily. It sounds like she's getting out of her lion.

“She wasn't,” a female voice says. “Me and Lance switched back before the fight. He's better with his own lion.”

There is stunned silence for a second. “Wait…” Hunk says. “Lance went through that wormhole?” More silence, which is followed by the only word Keith can think of: chaos.

“Wormhole! We need one!”

“Oh my god, we have to get him!”

“We can't leave _Lance_ \--”

“We are surrounded by the enemy here!”

“Why did you switch?”

“I thought --”

“Why didn't you _tell_ us?”

“Princess! Wormhole!”

“Everyone, _shut up!_ ” Keith yells into his helmet. “Allura, wormhole us out of here. Pidge, Hunk, get out of the lions and try to think of a plan to find Lance. Maybe check on your dad, Pidge.” He takes his helmet off and throws it against the inside of the black lion, before anyone can say a word. Tomorrow is going to be hell, because Keith will have to actually face his teammates. Tomorrow, he will have to be the leader. Again.

He’s finally out of the leading lion; Keith looks back at it before leaving. It is big and unyielding, frightening and steady. The black lion is so much different than Red, and Keith aches, once again, for everything that once was.

Shiro used to lead Voltron. Keith needed that guidance and still needs it now -- he has no idea what he is doing. He used to pilot the red lion with comfort and ease (that is, after Red finally opened up to him). He used to be able to work effortlessly with the other paladins -- combining Pidge and her lion to smash things, punching the enemy when Hunk and his lion were in position to steady Voltron, and moving with Lance, even when Voltron _wasn't formed,_ learning how to communicate and be something close to friends, taking down Zarkon almost with ease.

But then Shiro left, and Keith was thrust into a position he was not equipped to handle. One of the only things keeping himself from straight up flinging himself into space was the fact that his team needed him. And he could only lead when Lance was there anyways, literally being his right-hand-man, learning to pilot Red in Keith's place.

Now Lance is gone, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Come follow my tumblr account! My username is gracekaro, the same as here.


End file.
